Coffee and Tea and Satisfaction

I'll tell it straight up - being here is fabulous, not because every moment is filled with ice cream and tickles, but because laughing and crying, work and play, community and solitude are all done with perfect measure.  For every extreme that might drain my spirit there is an equal resistance that brings everything into harmony.  It is not so much the things that we do but the things we become privy to in small moments - even the abstract to some degree. Even today when I was about to get exhausted from work Suzanne stopped me and said, "Do you want to hear a good poem?'  And it was a good poem indeed - it was about the inward worth and potential of a person. Who can be worn from work with a spirit like that?  I do not look forward to the weekend or a time of rest rather I look forward to tomorrow and I look forward to the next task.  For every hour we work over there is another hour of required silence and meditation.  The work we do is often hard or high caliber but we do it and ask for more like it was a bag of sweet treats coming dangerously near the end.  Though always one of us is assigned to a particular meal the rest of us chip in to help with the preparations and cleanup.  (It's often easier to cook than to not cook on account of this.)  

Tony, our month long volunteer, bravely going into BC territory.

I experience so much throughout the day that wish to relate to you all but so copious are the good things that I forget by evening when I write things down.  I'm slowly forgetting the tastes of the other side too.  I do not miss my cigarettes, I do not miss my carnivorous diet and I do not long for money.  Only when I come to small breaks of silence and realize nobody is in the room do I begin to hurt for things.  I then miss my friends and the cities and all the possessions that come along with it.  These times are few and demons of necessity rather than plague.  Being here is a reminder that perhaps I can be who I wish to be.  Here I can be good.  I am here to believe in people again. As of yet I can't - I only go through the motions of what it means to trust and believe in the good of the whole.  It is inconceivable, however, that in a reasonable time I won't have to fake it - I will, as my friend says, turn forced joy into real joy.  It is good to be of some worth again.  Just in this days activities I have been a musician and singer, in media relations, a filmographer, farmer, cook, advertiser and newly learned driver of manual transmission. (Brayton and Suzanne finally approved of my skill to drive stick alone!) I am proud to be of use but also to know that I need to community I am apart of.  No one of us, co-founder, intern or volunteer goes unnoticed or unneeded.  We are sparrows and much more.  Harass a wren's plot.  This no longer applies.  

Dana, best cook ever, and, Nathan, laughing at his own jokes.

Ellen, not wanting to be photographed mistakenly though I wouldn't trick her into being shot.